


Mistletoe

by Bonnie Klyde (BonnieKlyde)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Holiday related shenanigans, Loceit - Freeform, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, With a teeny tiny bit of hurt/comfort in there, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonnieKlyde/pseuds/Bonnie%20Klyde
Summary: Janus finds himself the victim of a cruel prank involving Logan and a  baffling amount of mistletoe. Janus is completely unbothered. No, really, he is.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: mild cursing, kissing
> 
> Happy holidays, friends and fellow fanders!

The first time it had happened had been an unfortunate accident. Logan had been leaning casually against the doorframe that opened the living room up into the hallway, engaged in a conversation with Roman that must have been exasperating judging by the long-suffering huff of his breath and the roll of his eyes. Upon closer inspection, however, it was clear that the exasperation was mostly feigned—the lopsided curve of the logical side’s lips betrayed his fond amusement at whatever asinine argument Roman must have been making. All of this was readily apparent to Janus at a mere glance in Logan’s direction. Janus was, after all, keenly observant and had his gaze landed on Roman instead of Logan, he would have gleaned just as much information about the prince. Obviously.

None of that, however, was what stopped Janus dead in his tracks as he made his way down the hallway. No, what ground his mind and body both to a full stop was the small sprig of green and red hanging from the top of the doorway, just to the left of Logan’s head. Later, Janus would wrack his brain for some good reason that the sight of mistletoe arrested him so thoroughly, but for now he did the only thing he seemed capable of doing—he just…stared. His eyes locked onto the tiny plant as if it were the most fascinating thing that Janus had ever seen…or maybe as if it were something horrific that he couldn’t peel his eyes from. His feet moved without direction of any kind from his mind, as if the damn mistletoe had some sort of magnetic pull on him. He took one step toward the doorway and then another, knowing full well he’d had no intention of going to into the living room when he’d started down this hallway. In fact, he’d never be able to recall where he wanted to go in the first place.

He had no idea how much time had elapsed before Roman noticed his presence or his staring, but Janus’s eyes were finally torn from the mistletoe at the sound of a low chuckle, and he looked in the creative side’s direction to see a slow grin spreading over the other’s face. Roman’s eyes flicked from Janus to the mistletoe hanging over Logan’s head—Janus didn’t dare let his gaze fall to Logan for fear of what expression _he_ might have been sporting—and took a step closer to the doorway.

 _Oh god_ , Janus’s useless, horrified mind provided. Suddenly, the deceitful side was absolutely certain of two things: first, that he was about to watch Roman step into the offending doorway and kiss Logan under that godforsaken mistletoe, and second, that he would rather tear off a limb than bear witness to that for one second. Upon reflection after the incident had passed, Janus would become certain of a third fact—that he’d never in his life looked more ridiculous than he did then, sprinting down the hallway to avoid two idiots and a stupid plant.

The second time it happened was all Roman’s doing. In hindsight, Janus really should have known that Roman was up to something when the other had called him into his room from down the hall, asking him to assist with some vaguely mysterious “problem.” Janus was _deceit_ for crying out loud. He should have _known_.

“Wait, don’t come in yet—just stand right there by the door,” Roman said in a rush, his voice all giddy excitement.

Janus stopped short, confused, and looked passed Roman to see an equally perplexed Logan sitting on the creative side’s bed. Since when were these two attached at the hip? If there was some sort of happy announcement forthcoming, Janus suspected he might literally be sick. Because Janus simply had neither time nor the patience to hear about the romantic exploits of the other sides. And for no other reason. Clearly.

“Roman, whatever this is, I really don’t—” Janus started to drawl, affecting a bored, disinterested tone, when he cut himself off in his own surprise and confusion as Logan was shoved unceremoniously to stand directly in front of him.

Janus blinked hard, attempting to discern exactly what was happening here and coming to no conclusions whatsoever because he was struck by the much more important realization that he’d never been close enough to Logan to get a good look at the logical side’s eyes behind his glasses. They were rich and dark and surprisingly _soft_ , and Janus was vaguely aware that his own lips had parted slightly of their own accord, his mouth gone completely dry in a matter of seconds. He was…ill. There could be no other explanation for his dry mouth and his complete inability to think straight.

He was torn from his reverie by the sound of Roman clearing his throat. Janus glared daggers at the prince standing behind Logan. The prince who was now jerking his head upward in an obnoxiously exaggerated motion, his eyes moving pointedly from Janus’s face to a spot above his head. Reluctantly, Janus followed Roman’s gaze upward and cursed under his breath when the sight above him finally shed clarity on this ridiculous situation. Mistletoe. Of course.

Like a child, Janus closed his eyes to avoid reality. Logan was anything but stupid, and he must have noticed that thrice damned mistletoe by now. Janus was totally unwilling to look Logan in the ( _deep, liquid, lovely_ ) eye and see any of the myriad unpleasant emotions that must be there. Discomfort. Disgust. Horror. Pity. No, Janus refused to see any of it, refused to acknowledge that this cruel joke was being played on him. For a second time, he turned tail and ran without a word. Roman was yelling something from behind him, but Janus was too busy wiping at his face to pay attention to what it was. His eyes were watering because he must have some sort of allergy to mistletoe—it was the only plausible explanation.

The third time, Patton had somehow become involved. The moral side had cajoled Janus into helping him in the kitchen, and as Janus focused on his attempt to avoid burning the contents of the pan he’d been placed in charge of, Patton waved at something—or as it turned out, someone—behind them.

“Oh hi, Logan! Lucky you’re here; we need a third man over here. Could you grab the salt for me? It’s in that cabinet next to Janus.”

“Luck was in no way involved in my presence here, Patton,” Logan replied as he approached the relevant cabinet. His tone was equal parts exasperated and confused, and Janus hadn’t the slightest clue why it made him smile to himself, why such a mundane statement from Logan seemed to cause something to constrict in his chest. “You did, after all, provide an exact time at which my help would be urgently required in the kitchen.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Patton said, his voice overly chipper even for him. “Well, now that you’re here, why don’t you just add that salt to Janus’s pan there?”

“I hardly see why you needed a third person for this,” Logan remarked, but he didn’t sound particularly bothered despite his words.

Janus watched out of the corner of his eye as Logan moved to do what he was told, reaching over Janus’s arm to sprinkle salt into the pan. And Janus was imagining things when it looked as if Logan paused for no reason when he’d finished, and imagining again when he felt the brush of an arm gently over his. He was c _ertainly_ imagining things when he snuck a peek at Logan’s face and saw a slight flush in the other’s cheeks. Janus…simply had a vivid imagination.

As Logan’s arm finally moved away, Patton’s hand suddenly shot out, causing Janus to jump violently backward. And sure enough, there was that _fucking_ mistletoe again, dangling over Logan’s head from Patton’s hand. Subtle.

At this point, the mere sight of mistletoe must have triggered Janus’s flight response, as he had sunk out before he could so much as blink. He spent the rest of the day locked in his room. Because he was tired. What did he have to avoid anyway? No, he’d just had a trying day of…sautéing vegetables.

The fourth time, Janus had woken far earlier than he normally did and decided to fix himself a proper breakfast. In the kitchen, he found Logan looking absolutely nothing like himself.

The logical side was, for lack of a better term, a mess. He was on his feet but slouched over the counter as if without its support he would sink to the floor. He dawned a royal blue pajama set that looked like silk and was certainly something Janus had never seen the other wear before. Several buttons of his top were undone, and his glasses were nowhere to be seen. He was looking down at what was likely his fourth cup of coffee, so Janus couldn’t quite see his eyes, but they must have been tired because Janus _could_ make out the bags under Logan’s eyes that, today, rivaled even Virgil’s. When Logan finally registered that someone had entered the room and met Janus’s expression with tired and inexplicably _sad_ eyes, Janus had to make a concerted effort to restrain himself from the sudden impulse to round the counter that stood between them and wrap this man in his arms. To stroke Logan’s bedraggled hair and hum soft melodies in his ear until the stubborn man could be coaxed back to bed.

The deceitful side cleared his throat violently to dispel that dangerous train of thought, a sound that caused Logan to wince as if Janus had shouted at him.

“Are you going to run away from me again?” Logan asked in a tone that sounded like loss, like tragic defeat.

Janus blanched. Was Logan’s current state somehow _Janus’s_ fault?

“No,” he answered in a tentative voice, just above a whisper. “And I don’t…I haven’t been running away from you,” he added weakly.

Logan chucked at that, the sound carrying no humor in it.

“I am many things, Janus, but I think we can both agree that an idiot is not one of them,” he said, and Janus would pay any price if someone would tell him why in the world Logan sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “Roman and Patton have conspired to play a cruel trick on you, it seems. I did attempt to talk them out of it, once I realized what it was they were trying to do.”

Janus wanted very badly to lie. To pretend he didn’t know exactly what Logan was talking about. Like he was blissfully unaware of the goddamned mistletoe and just how unfair this prank was to both of them. Somehow, his normally silver tongue had turned to lead, and he struggled to find any words at all, let alone a lie.

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to choke out, distressed as he was by the redness of Logan’s dark eyes.

“Don’t,” Logan returned, and it sounded like plea. “Apparently, it is _I_ who should be making apologies.”

There was a bitterness to Logan’s last statement that Janus couldn’t understand.

“What do you have to apologize for?”

Logan blinked and a single tear escaped its duct to roll slowly down the logical side’s face. Janus watched it in horror. He opened his mouth to speak again, to say something, _anything_ to fix this, but Logan cut him off.

“I don’t _know_ ,” he exclaimed. “I’ve recounted every moment of the past week in _painstaking_ detail and I cannot come up with what it is I could have done.”

“You haven’t—” Janus rushed to interject, but Logan soldiered on.

“I understand that the nonsense with the mistletoe has distressed you. I understand that you find the act that Roman and Patton have attempted to set in motion with it is unpleasant to you. I _understand_ that my feelings for you have always been unrequited—”

“Your _feelings_ for—?”

“But what I _cannot_ understand is what I have done to convince you so thoroughly that I would ever _force_ you. That you had to physically run away from me to prevent…how exactly did you arrive at the conclusion that I would ever kiss you without your consent?”

In that moment, the slightest push would have knocked Janus to the ground. Since none came, he simply stared, frozen, mouth hanging open and he struggled to process all that Logan had just said. Logan stared right back at him with wet but determined eyes, evidently awaiting Janus’s answer. Regrettably, Janus’s bewildered mind had none to offer.

“Your _feelings_ for me?” he tried again, a slight quiver in his voice betraying his fear.

Logan tucked his head downward at that, and Janus’s heart clenched painfully at the realization that he probably did so to conceal more tears. It was several moments before the logical side had composed himself enough to look up once more, his face confirming Janus’s suspicions.

“Must we talk about that part of it?”

Logan asked the question as if these feelings Logan apparently had were obvious, that there had been some sort of unspoken understanding between the two of them. But Janus continued to stare dumbly back at Logan. Perhaps it was cruel, to push further now. But Janus was selfish, and Janus was _afraid_ —he was not going to subject himself to rejection. He couldn’t; it would defy the very fabric of who he was. He had to be sure.

“Yes,” came his answer on a disbelieving breath.

Logan nodded as though in defeat. He took a long, shaking breath before delivering his answer.

“Though I have been aware of the…unusual affect you have on me for quite some time now, it was only recently that Roman assisted me in coming to terms with the fact that the feelings I have for you have a name. That name being, as I am sure has been obvious to the rest of you, love.”

Love. Janus’s brain halted on the word and he was sure that Logan was still speaking, but the deceitful side’s mind had short circuited. His feet moved of their own accord, and before Janus could register what was happening, he had rounded the edge of the counter and was now standing directly in front of Logan, his hand resting on Logan’s hip.

Logan stopped speaking abruptly—may have even stopped breathing from the sound of it—and blinked heavily, eyes fixed on the spot where Janus’s hand had fallen. He opened his mouth several times and closed it again without speaking. He furrowed his brows as if recalculating a difficult equation to see where he’d gone wrong with it the first time. His brows were still furrowed when he met Janus’s eyes once more.

“Roman…told me it was obvious, that I loved you. You…you _knew_ how I felt.” Logan’s last statement came out like a question.

Janus shook his head in slow motion, still struggling to believe the turn this conversation had taken. Logan’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t…you _didn’t_ know…”

“It would appear,” Janus said softly, bringing a reverent hand to rest against Logan’s cheek and reveling in how easily the logical side leaned into his touch, “that you vastly overestimated my intelligence, dearheart.”

Logan’s breath hitched at the term of endearment, and the logical side moved closer to Janus as if pulled by magnetism, his shaking hand rising to rest against Janus’s chest.

“ _Why_ did you run away?” Logan asked as Janus’s thumb moved to brush a stray tear from the other’s face.

“Because I was afraid,” Janus answered, for once completely honest.

“You’re…afraid of me?”

Janus chuckled, the sound soft and fond and full of affection.

“Dearheart, you are _terrifying_. Now kiss me.”

Logan needed no further prompting. In an instant the logical side had closed the short distance between them, placing his free hand at the back of Janus’s head, and suddenly nothing registered in Janus’s mind apart from the feeling of Logan’s lips on his. They tasted like black coffee, and Janus had always hated coffee but all at once nothing had ever tasted so sweet. Janus moved the hand he’d placed on Logan’s hip to wrap it tightly around the logical side’s waist and pull him closer. The kiss was sweet and soft and gentle, and Janus couldn’t help but smile against Logan’s lips. There was a breathy sound of contentment that could have come from either of them—Janus hadn’t the slightest clue. Janus kissed Logan a second, third, fourth time, unwilling to come up for air as if the moment they parted, Logan would vanish.

The sound of Logan’s quiet laughter gave him pause. He pulled back just far enough to look the other in the eye, and saw that, at some point, Logan’s eyes must have turned skyward, as he was now chuckling at the ceiling. Janus followed Logan’s gaze upward and nearly doubled over in laughter at the small sprig of green and red taped to the ceiling above them.

“Goddamned mistletoe,” he muttered before leaning in for yet another kiss.

The stupid plant had its merits after all.


End file.
